Israeli Intelligence Would Be Helpless Without Its Squadron Of 'Flying Camels'

The Squadron of the “Flying Camels” is also IAF’s most active one
in terms of flying hours.

It has taken part in each war fought by Israel
since 1948 War of Independence,
and its spy planes almost constantly fly over the Israel-Lebanon
border, near Gaza, or wherever they are requested to
collect imagery, observe ground targets and detect
any Hamas or Hezbollah activity.

In fact, its task is to provide visual intelligence and targeting
to make Israel’s air strikessurgical (and effective).

The squadron is equipped with the “Tzufit”, a highly modified
Beech 200 Super King Air that has been packed with advanced (and
mostly secret) electro-optic surveillance systems that acts as a
spy plane as well as an airborne command post.

During its routine surveillance flights, the aircraft gathers
data that is used to build up and update a database of ground
targets: if a suspect activity or an actual rocket attack is
reported inside the Gaza Strip, one of the aircraft is
promptly scrambled to spot the target (if not already
flying in the vicinity), identify and select it, “clean it”
(confirming that there are no civilians nearby), and then live
broadcast the images of the terrorists to a wide variety of
“customers”, attack planes, helicopter, drones, ground patrols, that will have the
task to actually destroy it.

In other words, the modified, seemingly harmless twin-turboprop
plane is pivotal to the entire process that goes from the
selection to the destruction of the target.

100 Sqn commander, Lt. Col. Yoav (last name was not released) was
recently interviewed by the Jerusalem Post at the
unit headquarters at Sde Dov
airport in Tel Aviv.

What he said is interesting under several points of view.

First of all, he explained that the Beech aircraft of his
squadron support army forces in Judea and Samaria, on the Gaza
border, and have also flown abroad, when they have taken part to
a joint exercise with the Hellenic Air Force in Crete.

Then, he highlighted the importance of manned intelligence
platforms versus drones, unveiling a subtle competition
with UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) crews:
piloted planes can observe ground targets from a greater
distances, and from higher altitudes, staying out of the envelope
of surface-to-air missiles. Furthermore, the
“Tzufit” turboprop are faster than drones (hence it can quickly
be diverted to follow a “target of opportunity”) and is less
affected by bad weather.

Once the target has been handed over to an attack platform, the
subsequent strike can be called off even when a missile is
already in the air on its way to the target.

“We are connected to everything happening in the Middle
East,” Yoav said to the JP. “If something happens, we get
involved,” and we can understand the reason.
Image credit: IDF